Do you sometimes worry that you are invisible?
As I always like to remind everyone, marketing is a verb.
It’s a set of actions. It’s about creating campaigns, sometimes with some advertising, and actively reaching out to your market. It’s getting your brand seen, understood, and then trusted enough that someone will consider doing business with you. It’s staying top of mind and becoming a friend – albeit a “cyber” friend”.
It’s about building a quality relationship with people who have shown interest in you and whatever it is that you are offering for sale. It’s simply taking a little time, here and there, and sharing things with your potential buyers and collectors that will “strike a chord”. Marketing is all about staying “top of mind”.
One of the best and truly easiest ways to meet those goals is through email marketing. It’s the tool that keeps working even when you least expect it. Its strength is in its routine use and how easily your clients can participate. Effective emails are generally subtle and easy to digest. The results can be tracked in easy-to-understand marketing statistics.
However, it’s the instant feedback that makes the whole thing so powerful. You know who reads your message and you know who takes your suggestions to “click-through” and visit your website or shopping cart. Easy statistics and other simple tools that are inherent in a professional program like Constant Contact, or others of that kind, have revolutionized and personalized our marketing efforts today.
As someone who has used email marketing as my main tool for over a decade, I have been preaching and teaching the benefits and best practices for email marketing for nearly as long as I have used it. That’s because it worked almost instantly the first few months I put it to use in my wholesale business.
Then, as I began initiating and creating accounts for my clients, I really began to see the powerful outcomes. I get great feedback from my consultation clients who take the time to get started with email marketing. However, I recently had a very sincere testimonial from an artist. And it happened in a face-to-face moment with an extra fabulous surprise ending.
A share-worthy moment
It all happened in the lobby of a fine hotel on Maui where I show my wearable art jewelry and where several other fine artists and makers show off their skills each Sunday. We are under full-year contracts and many of us have been together for years.
Over the years, I have a great relationship with one artist who is always up for a quick chat about marketing and strategizing. She is an award-winning painter and very successful. She is also a client of mine who uses Constant Contact and is keen to use email marketing’s many advantages. As she walked up to me, she began with, “McKenna, I want to thank you and share something you truly deserve to hear.”, and then she went on to say:
“I just sold a painting this week to a woman who said she had been getting my emails for a couple of years. She said that she had been following my career, watching me progress and feeling like she was really getting to know me. When she saw my work in person after seeing it only in emails and online for so long, she quickly moved from viewer to buyer. “
How cool was that? This is exactly what I tell all my clients. Emails are powerful at building relationships. We continued to chat about how much we both love emails and how well they do the job.
Then I said, “And you know, she might not have read every email or always clicked through to see your website, but just seeing your name in her inbox keeps that flame alive and keeps that relationship growing. Unless she actively deletes them, she might see your name for a few days – every time she opens her email browser to check her mail – she can be reminded of you.”
And then it happened.
Just moments later, as we stood together and I continued to preach to the choir about how effective emails are, one of her newest clients came walking towards us. The back and forth between them was darn near spooky!
Artist: “Oh…Hi. I am so glad you found time to come by before you to go back home.”
Woman: “Oh yes! I just got your email. Thanks for sending it to me.”
Artist: “Well I knew you had a busy schedule and wanted to stay in touch before you left. I am glad you enjoyed the email.”
Woman: “Oh”, she said sheepishly, “I didn’t have time to read it, but it reminded me that you are here today.”
I nodded and smiled and the artist looked in my direction with a big smile as she led her client towards a specific piece in her display that she had included in her email; the one that never got opened.
The testimonial was complete. I was ecstatic.
Bottom line: these are marketing messages that reach their intended targets
What is important to understand about emails is that they make it into your subscriber’s inboxes 97% of the time. Or put another way, 97% of emails that are sent via professional email programs and via professionally established servers, like Constant Contact, arrive in an inbox. There is no other way to be sure that your “message” will make it to your desired recipient when using social media. Facebook is barely allowing any of your fans to see anything you post anymore. Last I checked, it’s still averaging a 2% reach and you still don’t know who was among the 2%. Is that any way to grow a business?
Plus, you can encourage those genuinely interested people – AKA “prospects” for future sales – to sign up at your events. With the summer shows are right around the corner, can you afford to let people walk away without getting their email address? Is there some way that they will magically think of you in the future if they are never reminded of you and your art again?
When they sign up, you know for CERTAIN that they want to stay in touch and hear whatever news you have to share. And have no doubt about it; it’s really pretty easy for people to be inspired and excited about signing up. Just give them a little incentive.
What is a Q R code? I use Mail Chimp (free) for all my campaigns. Do they have this Q R code?
I have no idea what your free program provides, Nancy. But this is one of several built-in “list growing tools” included in Constant Contact. But with a little effort, you could create and add a QR code to anything. Many of my clients have added them to their banners or as a stand-alone poster to have people sign up instantly at shows. You have seen these around for a long time. They are used to allow a quick scan on a mobile device. They are heavily used in most magazine ads. Within seconds the page you direct people to will open in their browser.
Many people add them to a business card to send people directly to their websites, but as many of you know, I am VERY opposed to getting a real LIVE and interested in shopping person at a show to start imagining purchasing at a website. It’s yet another reason why you would NEVER leave your cards out for people to grab – especially if you are using a QR code to send them to your site. You should be sending them to your sign-ups! Meanwhile, here’s what is on the side of my car as a magnet and what I use at tradeshows or speaking engagements.
Mckenna, I could tell you so many stories like these of my experience of customers coming into my studio who’ve read or received (and not read) my emails! It’s amazing how people feel they know me and refer to things I wrote a long time back. What can be disconcerting is often I send out emails and get little or no response and hardly ever a sale as a direct result of the email but they come in their own time. When the time is right for them, they will walk in and make a large purchase that they’ve been contemplating for some time. If I hadn’t kept in touch, they would’ve forgotten all about me and I wouldn’t be in their thoughts when they have the birthday/anniversary/re-decorating/house-warming.
Great testimonial, Rebecca. And I would assume that you might someday or already have had a direct sale and just don’t put two & two together. A client of mine recently shared that she had a big commission that came out of the blue. I asked her how the person knew to call her, and she said she wasn’t sure. I checked into (as her account manager) her recently sent email statistics and found the client. I saw that she had clicked through a recent email. I called my client and asked, “Did you know that your commission was probably from your last email?” (sidebar: She had no idea the woman was on her list!) I told her exactly what time she had opened the email and my client said… “Oh… Well… she called me right about that time. Wow. She must have gotten my phone number off my email. I had no idea that one email would be worth over $4000. Thanks, Mckenna!”
It turned out that she had met the woman at a fund-raiser where she had a donated piece in an auction. The woman didn’t buy at the auction but obviously had been excited enough by my client’s art to join the list on her own. You never know where that “constant” contact – monthly at a minimum – will lead!
(yes… I am all smiles)
I do get occasional direct sales – I had one from that new work page you checked out the other day and a couple more related sales of prints. But you’re right, I often don’t have time to ask those details so there could be more. Do you think it’s a good idea to always ask people how they found you so you can see what’s working? Or would that just come off as annoying? Sometimes they volunteer the information – it can be quite a long story involving multiple different exposures!
While it’s nice to know what is working – I think one of the best questions any artist should ask when someone is approaching our work is: “Have you seen my work before”. (hm…. I think I have my next article for the other blog!) And if they say “Yes” Well, then… YUM! You can bet they will want to share that connection and if they are not forthcoming… you certainly can ask them more questions. It’s all part of the Empathy/Enthusiasm that I discuss in my guidebook, right? Engaging them in what is interesting to them.
If they say “No” then you have “permission to give that 15 – 30-second elevator speech: “Well welcome to my collection of hand-pulled original prints. Most are engravings, some are monotypes and I also have a selection of very affordable reproductions that make great gifts. Please take as much time to browse as you want and feel free to ask me any questions along the way.”
And onward and upwards from there….And those long stories are what you want. You know that when they are sharing their stories, they are feeling very connected to you and your art. Always nurture the stories – but remember the importance of “Elasticity” to bring them back to your artwork and your selling purpose.
Thanks for that – I must memorise those sentences! I do use “Have you seen my work before?” because I find out very quickly if they’ve come specially to see me and make a purchase rather than passing through and getting exposed to the artwork for the first time.
I always recommend that everyone have a different and quick introduction. If someone else enters your space and you end up robotically repeating the same exact phrases again, you will seem less genuine to the others who just heard the exact same thing. Group two might get, “Welcome. Is this your first time to the studio or are you already a collector?” Okay… there’s more I could say, but I really do think I will save this for an in-depth article for the E’s of Selling Blog! Buat as someone who has the guide, you probably already know what I was about to say, Rebecca. Thanks as always for contributing to this discussion!
Just back from my open studio weekend. Wanted to let you know that nearly all the people that bought prints were off my email list and many others looked in to see how I was doing. Without that it would’ve been a poor turnout as out other promotional efforts didn’t yield much as far as I could tell. There was some overlap from Facebook but it was the emails that did the trick. I remembered to vary my welcome and set up a computer with videos so that I didn’t have to explain my techniques to every visitor. I found this freed me up quite a bit to focus on those who needed advice and encouragement about a purchase.
Thanks for all your help and encouragement. It works!
You are such a perfect example of an email “marketer”. You are the verb. You are the queen. Another client has just started her Mother’s Day (U.S holiday) campaign and had two online sales within the first 20 mins of hitting send. I really love email marketing!
But you took the extra effort to follow-through so that people coming to your studio were treated with proper care and feeding! So nice to hear and thanks for reporting your experience.